Gerhard Richter (born 1932) is predominantly known for his paintings and drawings, which strike a playful balance between photo-realism and abstraction, while at once delving into often controversial political commentary. His works have explored a multitude of media, from photo-based, monochrome and brightly colored paintings to ink-doused papers and thin, multicolored strips of pure pattern. Beyond his artistic works, and particularly in recent years, Richter has published extensively on his vision of art and artistic values: in letters, interviews, public statements, excerpts and articles, Richter has established himself as a brilliant advocate of contemporary painting. Richter has also increasingly explored the possibilities of the book as medium in a series of extraordinary artist's books. "Gerhard Richter: Books" takes an in-depth look at his work in this medium. It features a book-length interview with the artist by internationally renowned art critic and historian Hans Ulrich Obrist, who walks us through the Richter archive and discusses the work with the artist himself, affording the reader an entirely new perspective on his works. The book also includes a new text by Kunstmuseum Winterthur director Dieter Schwarz.

Supremely successful at the beginning of his life; lonely, bankrupt and virtually ignored at its end, Rembrandt produced some of the most powerful and psychologically penetrating works in the whole of world art. Poverty, illness, the deaths of his wife, children and devoted mistress - nothing deflected him from his inner vision and his unique handling of light: which would change the course of painting for ever.

There is a popular and romantic myth about Rembrandt and the Jewish people. One of history's greatest artists, we are often told, had a special affinity for Judaism. With so many of Rembrandt's works devoted to stories of the Hebrew Bible, and with his apparent penchant for Jewish themes and the sympathetic portrayal of Jewish faces, it is no wonder that the myth has endured for centuries.
"Rembrandt's Jews" puts this myth to the test as it examines both the legend and the reality of Rembrandt's relationship to Jews and Judaism. In his elegantly written and engrossing tour of Jewish Amsterdam--which begins in 1653 as workers are repairing Rembrandt's Portuguese-Jewish neighbor's house and completely disrupting the artist's life and livelihood--Steven Nadler tells us the stories of the artist's portraits of Jewish sitters, of his mundane and often contentious dealings with his neighbors in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, and of the tolerant setting that city provided for Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe. As Nadler shows, Rembrandt was only one of a number of prominent seventeenth-century Dutch painters and draftsmen who found inspiration in Jewish subjects. Looking at other artists, such as the landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael and Emmanuel de Witte, a celebrated painter of architectural interiors, Nadler is able to build a deep and complex account of the remarkable relationship between Dutch and Jewish cultures in the period, evidenced in the dispassionate, even ordinary ways in which Jews and their religion are represented--far from the demonization and grotesque caricatures, the iconography of the outsider, so often found in depictionsof Jews during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Through his close look at paintings, etchings, and drawings; in his discussion of intellectual and social life during the Dutch Golden Age; and even through his own travels in pursuit of his subject, Nadler takes the reader through Jewish Amsterdam then and now--a trip that, under ever--threatening Dutch skies, is full of colorful and eccentric personalities, fiery debates, and magnificent art.

In this, the only up-to-date critical work on still life painting in any language, Norman Bryson analyses the origins, history and logic of 'still life', one of the most enduring forms of Western painting. The first essay is devoted to Roman wall-painting while in the second the author surveys a major segment in the history of still life, from seventeenth-century Spanish painting to Cubism. The third essay tackles the controversial field of seventeenth-century Dutch still life. Bryson concludes in the final essay that the persisting tendency to downgrade the genre of still life is profoundly rooted in the historical oppression of women.
In "Looking at the Overlooked," Norman Bryson is at his most brilliant to date. These superbly written essays will stimulate us to look at the entire tradition of still life with new and critical eyes.

Claudia Nice shows you how to turn ink and watercolors into the coarse-barked trunk of an oak, or the burnished smoothness of brass, or the verdant velvet of moss. Or any of many other things. She shows you how to use dots, fine lines, brushstrokes, black and white, color--a mixture of mediums and techniques--to suggest:

• glass
• cast iron
• adobe and brick
• sunrise and sunset
• driftwood
• leaf textures
• basketry
• surf and ocean waves
• enamelware
• rainbows
• wood grain
• distant trees
• eggs and onions
• animal hair
• and dozens of other textures

In drawing or painting from live models and real landscapes, more was at stake for artists in early modern Italy than achieving greater naturalism. To work with the model in front of your eyes, and to retain their identity in the finished work of art, had an impact on concepts of artistry and authorship, the authority of the image as a source of knowledge, the boundaries between repetition and invention, and even the relation of images to words. This book focuses on artists who worked in Italy, both native Italians and migrants from northern Europe. The practice of depicting from life became a self-conscious departure from the norms of Italian arts. In the context of court culture in Rome and Florence, works by artists ranging from Caravaggio to Claude Lorrain, Pieter van Laer to Jacques Callot, reveal new aspects of their artistic practice and its critical implications.

Featuring 150 iconic artworks, The National Gallery Masters of Art Puzzle Book is a visually spectacular puzzle challenge perfect for any art-enthusiast. This must-buy gift book contains 100 puzzles reproducing and inspired by the world's most famous paintings, making it a truly one-of-a-kind decorative delight. From pictorial puzzles such as Fake or Fortune, Jigsaw and Scrambled Image, to cryptic puzzles like Odd One Out or The Missing Link, through logic puzzles, riddles and even a series of progressively more difficult art knowledge quizzes, there is something for everyone, from the puzzle master to the art aficionado. Featured paintings include Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh, The Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W. Turner, The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck, The Hay Wain by John Constable, The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci, Bathers at La Grenouillere by Claude Monet and many, many more.

This book presents a detailed account of Guillermo Kuitca's major bodies of work, analysing his diverse range of imagery and reflecting on his engagement with the spaces in which we live. Following Kuitca's development from the 1980s to his latest body of work, the narrative reveals an artist who has continually challenged himself and his audience with new kinds of painterly language. In Kuitca's hands, everyday visual material such as road maps, street plans, architectural blueprints and theatre seating charts are transformed into remarkable paintings. Their impact comes from their apparent engagement with dark subjects such as the Holocaust and Argentina's 'Dirty War,' as well as the artist's innovative imagery and techniques. Drawing on conversations and studio visits the author has had with the artist, Guillermo Kuitca reveals the multifarious elements of a challenging and exciting body of work. It is essential reading for anyone fascinated by this truly original artist.

The original 1993 edition of "The Painter's Handbook" was not just another guide to artist's materials; it established itself as an amazingly thorough professional resource, with complete details on the vast array of materials available to the artist, including canvases and papers, sizes and grounds, pigments and binders, solvents and thinners, varnishes and preservatives. The book also contains dozens of step-by-step recipes for making art materials, including made at home or the studio paints, pastels, varnishes, gessoes, sizes, supports, and equipment. "The Painter's Handbook", revised and expanded, is a thoroughly revised edition of the original publication. It has been updated to accommodate the enormous changes in the art materials world during the past decade: in which many new kinds of revolutionary paints and pigments have entered the market; new health issues are addressed concerning outmoded and even harmful materials and practices; and new ASTM standards - of which the author Mark Gottsegen is the chairman of this government committee to set standards for the performance, quality, and health labelling of artist's paints and related materials - on light fastness and the general longevity of art materials are provided.

Little is known about Walter Leblanc (1932-1986), one of the key representatives of kinetic and optical art in the mid-20th century. This comprehensive monograph, the first on this artist for an international audience, includes unpublished materials, which provide insight not only into the art of LeBlanc, but also into the ZERO artist movement to which he was connected and with which he was in close dialogue beginning in the 1950s. Walter Leblanc is based on extensive studies of the artist's work: with about 150 images of his paintings and sculptures, comparative works, historical photos and documents, it includes a selection of Leblanc's writings, an iconographic mapping of selected works in museums around the world, and a bio-bibliographical appendix. Demonstrating the wealth of his creative output, the book reaffirms the enduring role Leblanc played in the development of modern and contemporary art on a global scale. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

The seventeenth century was a time of exceptional mobility for Netherlandish artists. This mobility had a profound impact on artistic developments, stimulating innovation and creativity in the Netherlands as well as abroad. Whereas most artists undertook a relatively short study trip, others decided to settle down and shape their life in a new environment. This study traces the integration process - as artists and as migrants in general - of Aert Mytens, Louis Finson, Abraham Vinck, Hendrick De Somer and Matthias Stom in Naples between 1575 and 1655. Departing from the idea that the experience of every migrant is specific to their background and skills, The Neapolitan Lives and Careers of Netherlandish Immigrant Painters (1575-1655) examines the challenges each of these five artists faced, the choices they made and the opportunities they grasped. The dynamics of art and society in Naples, the bustling capital of the Spanish viceroyalty, forms the context for their lives and careers.

This new publication explores the whole career of Winifred Nicholson with a special emphasis on her theories of colour. Using specific paintings to examine her ideas and writings about colour the book includes her late 'prismatic' pictures which have never been properly explained. Throughout her life Winifred Nicholson was interested in prisms and rainbows, but when she was given some prisms by a physicist friend in the mid 1970s her painting took on a new direction. Looking through a prism she saw objects with a rim of prismatic colour, and explored and developed these ideas, often painting pictures that verged on the abstract. Nicholson's 'prismatic' pictures were a culmination of her life's search to find "form's secret and rhythmic law". She painted them in Greece in 1979, at her home in Cumbria, and during her last painting trip to the Island of Eigg in the Hebrides in 1980, where she had an inspired period of painting and made some of her best loved pictures. Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Liberation of Colour' at mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern art, the book illustrates many previously unseen paintings from private collections, as well as some of Nicholson's best known works, and draws on new research, including previously unseen archival material.

Collected for the first time in a new translation: two of the most important and far-reaching biographies of an artist ever written, and our principal sources for the life of Velazquez. Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) is for many the greatest painter ever to have lived. His astonishing naturalism had an immediate and lasting impact on his contemporaries, inspiring both awe and fierce debate. Most of what we know about Velazquez' life and incomparably successful career comes from these two biographies. Francisco Pacheco, a second rank painter, was Velazquez' teacher and eventually father-in-law - possibly the closest relationship between a painter and his biographer in all art. This Life, part of Pacheco's theoretical work, the Art of Painting, has never been translated before, and it reveals the scale of the challenge to traditional painting presented by Velazquez' insurmountable talent. Antonio Palomino, the Spanish Vasari, was born just after Velazquez died, but knew many of the painter's friends and colleagues. His biography, precise and detailed, is an incomparable source, but like Pacheco's text, also tackles the aesthetic debate engendered by Velazquez' choice of subject matter and style. Together these biographies give an excitingly close insight into the mind and world of a great painter. The introduction by Michael Jacobs situates these biographies in the context of Spain's Golden Age, and the intellectual ferment in painting and in the theatre that lie behind Velazquez' magic. The translations are by Nina Ayala Mallory, the leading scholar of Spanish artistic biographies. The volume is richly illustrated with 30 plates illustrating the full gamut of Velazquez' work.

No other artist, apart from J. M. W. Turner, tried as hard as Claude Monet (1840-1926) to capture light itself on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was the man Cezanne called "only an eye, but my God what an eye!" who stayed true to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting directly from the object. It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color. Whether it was through his early interest in Japanese prints, his time as a conscript in the dazzling light of Algeria, or his personal acquaintance with the major painters of the late 19th century, the work Monet produced throughout his long life would change forever the way we perceive both the natural world and its attendant phenomena. The high point of his explorations was the late series of water lilies, painted in his own garden at Giverny, which, in their approach toward almost total formlessness, are really the origin of abstract art. This biography does full justice to this most remarkable and profoundly influential artist, and offers numerous reproductions and archive photos alongside a detailed and insightful commentary. About the series Bibliotheca Universalis - Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features Kew Gardens' Marianne North: Honeyflowers and Honeysuckers, South Africa. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world famous centre for botanical and mycological knowledge. Kew has a gallery dedicated to the paintings of the remarkable Victorian artist Marianne North, who had a great eye for botanical detail. She set out in 1871 on a painterly progress through world flora. North's journey to South Africa was among her last, along with trips to the Seychelles and Chile.

This is the first monograph on Arne Quinze (b.1971), an internationally known Belgian contemporary artist, painter and sculptor. He is best known for his monumental outdoor sculptures, which can be found all over the world. This book gathers his large-scale work, and includes other mediums he works in, including paintings, smaller sculptures, and light installations. With 500 images, an elaborate essay by Xavier Roland, the director of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Mons (Belgium), and a revealing and exclusive interview by Herve Mikaeloff, this beautifully illustrated publication marks the opening of a retrospective of his work at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Mons (Belgium) in May 2021.

Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most productive and exciting painters of his time, noted for his expressive, emotive and sensual paintings which are now instantly recognizable. Indeed, his voluptuous female figures have given rise to the word 'Rubenesque'. This book explores the life and times of Rubens, from his early studies in Italy through to his apprenticeship in Antwerp and his subsequent outstanding accomplishments as 'the prince of painters and the painter of princes'. It also contains a gallery of 300 of his paintings and drawings, revealing his unparalleled position as an artist, diplomat, scholar, linguist, teacher, art collector and devoted family man.

Over the course of his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) transformed not only his own style, but the course of art history. From early figurative and landscape painting, he went on to pioneer a spiritual, emotive, rhythmic use of color and line and is today credited with creating the first purely abstract work. As much a teacher and theorist as he was a practicing artist, Kandinsky's interests in music, theater, poetry, philosophy, ethnology, myth, and the occult, were all essential components to his painting and engraving. He was involved with both the influential Blaue Reiter and Bauhaus groups and left a legacy not only of dazzling visual work, but also of highly influential treatises such as Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Key tenets included the connections between painting, music and mystical experience, and the purification of art away from material realism and towards an emotional expression, condensed in particular by color. This book presents key Kandinsky works to introduce his repertoire of vivid colors, forms, and feelings. Tracing the artist's radical stylistic development, it shows how one painter's progression paved the way for generations of abstract expression to come. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was among the first British-born artists to rise to international recognition and acclaim and to this day he is considered one of the country's most celebrated and innovative masters. His output encompassed engravings, paintings, prints, and editorial cartoons that presaged western sequential art. This comprehensive catalogue of his paintings brings together over twenty years of scholarly research and expertise on the artist, and serves to highlight the remarkable diversity of his accomplishments in this medium. Portraits, history paintings, theater pictures, and genre pieces are lavishly reproduced alongside detailed entries on each painting, including much previously unpublished material relating to his oeuvre. This deeply informed publication affirms Hogarth's legacy and testifies to the artist's enduring reputation. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Between 1790 and 1910, Danish painters developed a national school of art that matched the artistic centres of France, Germany and Britain. The range of outstanding works created by Nicolai Abildgaard, Jens Juel, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Christen Kobke, P. S. Kroyer and Vilhelm Hammershoi reflect and refract the great stylistic tendencies of European art of the 19th century, including Classicism, Romanticism, Impressionism and Symbolism. Illustrated with over two hundred key works of art drawn from the leading Danish collections, this is the only book available in English that surveys Danish painting across the 19th century. Written by a major scholar in the field, and featuring all the icons of the Danish Golden Age, this is an essential addition to all art libraries.

In this visually stunning and much anticipated book, acclaimed art historian Joseph Koerner casts the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel in a completely new light, revealing how the painting of everyday life was born from what seems its polar opposite: the depiction of an enemy hell-bent on destroying us. Supreme virtuoso of the bizarre, diabolic, and outlandish, Bosch embodies the phantasmagorical force of painting, while Bruegel, through his true-to-life landscapes and frank depictions of peasants, is the artistic avatar of the familiar and ordinary. But despite their differences, the works of these two artists are closely intertwined. Bruegel began his career imitating Bosch's fantasies, and it was Bosch who launched almost the whole repertoire of later genre painting. But Bosch depicts everyday life in order to reveal it as an alluring trap set by a metaphysical enemy at war with God, whereas Bruegel shows this enemy to be nothing but a humanly fabricated mask. Attending closely to the visual cunning of these two towering masters, Koerner uncovers art history's unexplored underside: the image itself as an enemy. An absorbing study of the dark paradoxes of human creativity, Bosch and Bruegel is also a timely account of how hatred can be converted into tolerance through the agency of art. It takes readers through all the major paintings, drawings, and prints of these two unforgettable artists--including Bosch's notoriously elusive Garden of Earthly Delights, which forms the core of this historical tour de force. Elegantly written and abundantly illustrated, the book is based on Koerner's A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, a series given annually at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.